Publications

reproductive suppression among female mammals: implications for biomedicine and sexual selection theory.	female mammals experience a very high and often unappreciated rate of reproductive failure. among human pregnancies alone, over 50 per cent fail between conception and parturition, and the majority of these failures are unexplained. these findings present important problems for evolutionary theory as well as for health care practices. this paper addresses these high rates of reproductive failure among mammals, by extending the work of a number of evolutionary biologists regarding the reproductiv ...	1983	6686686
a test of the acoustic adaptation hypothesis in four species of marmots.	acoustic signals must be transmitted from a signaller to a receiver during which time they become modified. the acoustic adaptation hypothesis suggests that selection should shape the structure of long-distance signals to maximize transmission through different habitats. a specific prediction of the acoustic adaptation hypothesis is that long-distance signals of animals in their native habitat are expected to change less during transmission than non-native signals within that habitat. this predi ...	1998	9933550
social structure and facultative mating systems of hoary marmots (marmota caligata).	mate-choice theory predicts different optimal mating systems depending on resource availability and habitat stability. regions with limited resources are thought to promote monogamy. we tested predictions of monogamy in a social rodent, the hoary marmot (marmota caligata), at the northern climatic extreme of its distribution. mating systems, social structure and genetic relationships were investigated within and among neighbouring colonies of marmots within a 4 km(2) valley near kluane national ...	2007	17391410
winter weather versus group thermoregulation: what determines survival in hibernating mammals?	for socially hibernating mammals, the effectiveness of huddling as a means of energy conservation should increase with group size. however, group size has only been linked to increased survival in a few hibernating species, and the relative importance of social structure versus winter conditions during hibernation remains uncertain. we studied the influence of winter weather conditions, social group composition, age-structure, and other environmental factors and individual attributes on the over ...	2013	23456241
comparative phylogeography highlights the double-edged sword of climate change faced by arctic- and alpine-adapted mammals.	recent studies suggest that alpine and arctic organisms may have distinctly different phylogeographic histories from temperate or tropical taxa, with recent range contraction into interglacial refugia as opposed to post-glacial expansion out of refugia. we use a combination of phylogeographic inference, demographic reconstructions, and hierarchical approximate bayesian computation to test for phylodemographic concordance among five species of alpine-adapted small mammals in eastern beringia. the ...	2015	25734275
ecological, evolutionary and social constraints on reproductive effort: are hoary marmots really biennial breeders?	biennial breeding is a rare life-history trait observed in animal species living in harsh, unproductive environments. this reproductive pattern is thought to occur in 10 of 14 species in the genus marmota, making marmots useful model organisms for studying its ecological and evolutionary implications. biennial breeding in marmots has been described as an obligate pattern which evolved as a mechanism to mitigate the energetic costs of reproduction (evolved constraint hypothesis). however, recent ...	2015	25768300
dental pathology of the hoary marmot (marmota caligata), groundhog (marmota monax) and alaska marmot (marmota broweri).	museum specimens (maxillae and mandibles) of the three marmot species occurring in alaska (marmota caligata [n = 108 specimens], marmota monax [n = 30] and marmota broweri [n = 24]) were examined macroscopically according to predefined criteria. there were 71 specimens (43.8%) from female animals, 69 (42.6%) from male animals and 22 (13.6%) from animals of unknown sex. the ages of animals ranged from neonatal to adult, with 121 young adults (74.4%) and 41 adults (25.3%) included, and 168 exclude ...	2017	27908555
the influence of sulfur and hair growth on stable isotope diet estimates for grizzly bears.	stable isotope ratios of grizzly bear (ursus arctos) guard hair collected from bears on the lower stikine river, british columbia (bc) were analyzed to: 1) test whether measuring δ34s values improved the precision of the salmon (oncorhynchus spp.) diet fraction estimate relative to δ15n as is conventionally done, 2) investigate whether measuring δ34s values improves the separation of diet contributions of moose (alces alces), marmot (marmota caligata), and mountain goat (oreamnos americanus) and ...	2017	28248995